Creativity = Healing

I'm passionate about sharing and working with others to experience healing, purpose and joy through creative expression.

In my own journey as an artist, I've observed and encountered societal pressure and beliefs about what creativity and artists should look like. These expectations stifled my own creative growth, until I was able to leave them behind. While formal art education has its benefits, it’s just one path to learning and creating. As both an artist and coach, one of my goals is to help people realize you don't have to have a fine art degree to produce incredible, meaningful, healing art.

My Creative Path

As a young girl, I saw others receive praise for their artistic skill and creativity. When I didn't receive the same accolades, I came to believe that I simply wasn't as creative as they were. Over time, I internalized that belief.

In later life, I was on the path to a nursing career when I purchased a piece of art that led me to a spiritual awakening and the understanding that I was an artist in my soul. I began taking traditional classes in ceramics, drawing, painting and design, but I felt constricted by the format. Through experimentation, I found I thrived in a less formal setting, studying with mentors and learning in workshops with other artists.

My love for abstract expressionism first played itself out on an easel in my guest bedroom. But I saw how the limitations of the environment were reflected in my work – it was tight, flat, blocked. I was afraid of getting my space dirty and I knew I needed room to get big, get messy, make mistakes – and make breakthroughs.

I exchanged the bedroom easel for a drop cloth and a wall in my garage, where I began slinging paint and working with both my hands and the brush. I began to give myself permission to play, to be curious, to discover. Most of all, I began to let go of perfectionism and the belief that my art needed to look like anything other than what it was – my own creative language.

Today, I work out of my studio in Houston, Texas, where I also provide creative life coaching and hands-on healing services through my practice, Soul Alchemy.